NHRA in Seatle - Greg Anderson’s positive day nets the fifth starting position

Summit Racing driver Greg Anderson had two positive experiences on Saturday during the final day of qualifying for the NHRA Northwest Nationals. The first occurred before the four-time champion even took to the track, as William Whiteside, a soldier he had met in Germany during the Team Summit troop visit last November, came out to his first drag race in order to reconnect with Anderson and teammate Jason Line.

Anderson and his KB Racing crew also had a good day on the racetrack, overcoming the dramatic twenty-degree rise in temperature from the day before to make two passes among the best in the Pro Stock field, including the third-quickest pass of the day at 6.586 seconds. Even though there were no changes among the top qualifiers, starting from the fifth position, he was cautiously optimistic about his chances for Sunday, admitting further improvement would probably be necessary to log his fifth win of the 2012 season.

“Our day got off to a great start, as we were able to reunite with somebody we met in Germany,” said Anderson. “It was a great feeling to see him back here in the States, in his hometown and able to come out and enjoy an NHRA drag race. He was very excited to be here, and extremely appreciative of getting to see us overseas, which is a complete reversal for us, because we were overwhelmed at just being able to see him back here.

Greg Anderson

Photo by: NHRA

“After everything he has done for our country, we’re glad to see him back home, and able to come out and have a little fun. He had
originally planned to just be here today, but we set him up with some tickets for tomorrow, so he can experience the thrill of final
eliminations. Any way you look at it, it’s just a cool, cool deal.

“On the track, we started off the day with a decent run this morning, which gave us three in a row that weren’t perfect, but near the top of the pack. We then did a little experimenting on our last run, and even though it looks like we went the wrong way, we learned what we can and can’t be doing, and what direction we need to head with this Summit Racing Camaro for tomorrow. So it was a good day and a learning day, and we’ll see if we can put them to good use tomorrow.

“That Mopar (driven by No. 1 qualifier Allen Johnson) is still as fast as the dickens, so we have our work cut out for us tomorrow to try and beat him, but we can’t worry about that until the later rounds, and there are a lot of good cars we’ll have to get around to get there. We’ll just take them one at a time, racing hard and scratching and clawing our way, trying to get as much out of these Summit Racing Camaros as we can. It’s a big day tomorrow and we’re looking to put this Western Swing in the books so we can go home and get back to the grindstone trying to find some extra performance.